Inhale
by ToTheEndsOfTheEarth12369
Summary: War can be sparked by the bitterest flint, fueled by visions of revenge. Weapons are made and used and bend backwards in the attempt. Some weapons will survive the test of time, while others will fall to unfathomable depths. Oc.


**So, I'm a bit hesitant to put this story up. everything written has been the combination of bits and pieces I've written since sixth grade. I personally love this story, and I in no way expect you to love it or to really read it. but please do, I think it's really good, if only for the first few chapters of everything Uchiha. Feel free to rate and review. **

**Btw, I've decided, since this is a detailed shadowing of Katana's life, that writing it normally would take to long, so it's in this strange paragraph form. I apologies if it's hard to read.**

**I own nothing. **

Years 0-5

My earliest memories in life were of the bright flash of cream and red, blobs of colors that stick to my memory like ink on stark paper. It's not my birth that I remember, infants cannot remember such things, so I suppose the colors and sounds, and the feelings the colors and sounds came with, came a bit later. But I do remember the color cream, and of red. And I remember something akin to terror, terror and the bitter taste of disappointment, although I don't think these emotions were mine. Sometimes, I like to fancy that the disappointment was happiness and the terror was joy, but that would be fooling myself. And Uchiha aren't fools. And I remember a face, a face that is rugged by years of stress and lost ambitions, striving to keep a dying clan alive. And although my infant mind is mottled, and I cannot remember what had exactly happened, I know that the face is of my father and that he would gaze upon his third child with these mix of emotions I remember so well, and he name me Katana. Katana, because after the centuries old tradition of having only male heirs was broken and a female was born, he had no choice but to give me a purpose, to bring back the honor that I stole from him. I was to be the Clans weapon, savior, and defender during times of war. That was my purpose. That was the day, I became a katana.

My tale, in the beginning, I believe to be much less dramatic than it could have sounded. After the unexpected pregnancy and the initial shock of Mikoto becoming pregnant at what was considered an 'advanced age', the anticipation was low and the level of expectance the same as was always for the third in line for the head of clan. The head family, which consists of the clan head, his wife and his children, has for more than 54 generations prided themselves to only producing male offspring, however ridiculous that may sound. I believe that in the older times, the female children were killed, or were given to another family to be raised, and was announced a miscarriage to save the current clan head his honor. But miscarriages, in the time of my birth when peace was at large and medical care was easily accessible, were rare. And under the watchful, untrusting gaze of the village, such a feat would have been murder on account of my parents, and shamed the clan more than the having a female child. Therefore, when I was born one lazy afternoon in May a whole month premature, the startled Clan Head that took me into his arms was faced with a challenge. And under the ever watching eye of the hokage, who was familiar with the situation, Fugaku gave me a name, solidifying my spot in the head family, shaming my family in the way Madara Uchiha once did. There were whispers for months after my birth, whispers of bad omens and old prophecies that tumbled off the lips of crones in the dying ambers of the humid nighttime, when the air is thick and crackling with patches of intense heat. The women of the clan looked down their long, straight noses for a very long time, harsh words spit over fence posts as gossip spread like wildfire. The men were solemn and silent, however dedicated they were to Fugaku the 'father of the Clan' stopped words from seeping between their teeth. The elders, all men of age and harshness to match the years they have seen combat, gnashed their teeth and curled their fingers into fists. But there is nothing they could have done. The name was given, and with the name I was given my life. And that one word, my name, was one of the only words my father ever spoke to me with. He was a cruel, merciless man who held himself straight up. He had respect, but not enough to outlive his shame. I was never held. I was never touched. But I felt his looks, when he glares at me coldly from his place at the dinner table, but my infant mind never comprehended the looks. My mother was a dutiful Uchiha wife that only handled me out of necessity. Her broken reputation with the other wives was a sore spot on her mind, and her affection was seldom, although most knew her to be an affectionate woman. That in itself was another blow to her shrinking popularity. But all in all, it never quite mattered to me. I wasn't really raised by either of them, but by the attention of my elder brothers, of my cousins, and of the few others in my life that called me their own without hanging their heads in shame. And although I pined for my parents attentions, I pined for my brothers even more. Because it was from them that my whole life will be drawn, like a map with specific directions written within its margins.

This is it, my life. My name is Katana Uchiha.

Fugaku is what I remember most of my first few years of life, not because of his presence, but because of his words. He taught me at a safe distance, always keeping me at an arm's length away, words falling into the spaces between us like the metallic sound of metal on metal. It is from these few and far between lessons that Fugaku begins the ruthless teachings and tests that will follow me through my life. To teach me distance, he never looks me in the eyes. To teach me courage, I was to stand in front of his fireballs as they softly grazed my skin. To teach me silence, I had the butt of a cigarette burned into my arm whenever I uttered a syllable. Fugaku denied me most human contact outside of secondary family and my brothers. I was to have no emotional bonds, for such things are weakness. But when those lessons were over, and my father walked away, my brothers came to me. They bandaged my wounds, and kissed my sores, and wisped the ashes out of my skin cells. They cuddled me close to their heartbeat, and I knew that they meant safety. They were protection, walls that I would often hide behind when things got too much for me to handle. Because I can handle the burning ends of cigarettes and the unforgiving gaze Fugaku landed on me every time, but I did not like the silence and I would disobey that command despite the consequence. And as I slowly began to learn the language of movement, Itachi taught me to utter my first word. And it was a spark that burned a flame inside me that would never be extinguished.

I loved words. I loved to hear them, I loved to see them written, and I always loved to watch the way people said them. I liked watching people's mouths. Sasuke always said that the mouth was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes for the first time, and that was why I liked it so much. And I found that there are many different ways of saying words without saying them at all. In one of Fugaku's harshest lessons he taught me to always be watching, and through that I picked up a certain curiosity with what people say. At three years of age, I was unable to utter a word, because I was taught to speak the language of the body and not the language of words. As my cousin Shisui once said, Fugaku intended to make an assassin of me. So despite understanding sentences and commands, I could not form words. But I watched others form them. I watched them as I moved about the streets, where the people ignored me in favor of denying I was alive, and I slowly began to learn. Little things, because the only time I was allowed outside our house garden was if I was with either of my uncles and aunts, or my brothers. So when I did see other people in an environment where they spoke freely, I was amazed at the things I learned. Itachi would often have to bend down and pick me up because I was stopped, reading the lips of someone or another. And it was due to this curiosity that Itachi and Shisui decided that they would teach me to speak, just one word, so that I may communicate with them without only using moans and screams. And so, in the darkness of the early morning, I mumbled the word 'color'.

That, in itself, was a word that meant a lot to me. From my very earliest memory, the image of a dark, bloody red has stuck in my mind and from that day forward when my gaze landed on my father I felt a cold tingle rise in my spine, and the color of that red was outlined like a backlight around him. And the color feels dense and heavy, but cold at the same time. Very cold, freezing almost, and it is from that I know my father is a man to be feared. And when I look at my mother, I see the beauty of the rising sun in her backlight, the color of red and orange, of yellow and gold, all strangely impacted together and forming a light, airy tone about her. On contrary, my aunt Yuuta, a member of the secondary family who is mother of my cousin Utaka and wife of my oldest uncle Isamo, has a color outline of dark brown, and it feels sharp enough to cut paper. And everyone, no matter who they are, has a outline of beautiful colors so that when I walk down the street its like walking on the surface of a rainbow, and no two colors are ever alike or the same. They have a different texture, a different shade, a different smell. Shisui has always smelled like metallic water, and Sasuke has always smelled husky in a way I cannot explain. As I explore further into this phenomenon, I realize that my brothers do not see these things the way I do. The colors are nonexistent to their eyes, and the only way they know someone is coming towards them is through their senses. When someone is coming towards me, I can place the colors with a smell and the smell with a person. Because each person is unique. And each one is beautiful.

After my first word, many other words follow. Utaka would bring home stacks of children's book and stationary paper, sitting with me on the starches of time when Fugaku had no interest in teaching me lessons, when my existence might as well not exist, and helps me develop characters and draw out words. I learn to read them like I read people. Itachi and I begin to have real, grown up conversation as he is making dinner, and Sasuke hides under the blankets of my futon at night, flashlight glaring in our faces as he makes puppet hand shadows against the white sheets and acts out the fairytales that are depicted in colorful scenes. Shisui turned my training into games, small things like chakra control practice turn into pirate invasions and warm-up exercises are missions to the moon. On the stretches of time in which my brothers are not in the village, I suffer through the extensive silences without uttering a word. I keep up appearances that I only read movement and not books, and await the day when my brothers' return and Fugaku no longer has to play father. When they return, we fall back into our games, until the day when I explained my colors to them. To their credit, they weren't all that surprised. Itachi raised an eyebrow, Utaka pressed his lips. I had never felt so small than that moment when I have to look up at them and explain the unexplainable. They were always tall boys, made taller by the age difference between us. Sasuke and Itachi, my blood brothers, were at youngest ten years older than me, and Utaka and Shisui, my blood cousins I consider my brothers anyway, are a good twelve and fourteen years older than me. I have to look straight up to see their faces, and most the time its only staring up their nose, but on often occasions I feel that even if I grow older they will always seem ten feet taller. 'What exactly does it look like?' my answer to Itachi's questions is the babble of a four year old, but I think my point came across. 'She may just be a sensor,' Utaka says, 'but that's rare, within the Clan.' 'Not entirely,' Itachi says, 'she's a gifted child. There should be no surprise of such things.' They were doing that thing where they speak as if I cannot hear them, but it gives me an insight into their conversations so I focus on their voices and not the movement of the colors. 'Wa' is it?' I ask them. 'It's called chakra, kitten,' Sasuke tells me, 'it's the life force of every person you see. What makes them, them. It's what we use in our jutsu and what you are currently learning to control.' I nodded in understand, even though I didn't understand. Sasuke ruffles my hair and I lean into his touch. We were situated around the square, oaken table in our kitchen after dinner one summer evening, when dusk lingers in open window seals, and the rice paper walls are damp and sticky. My brothers have made coffee, the smell still lingers in the room, and have each downed at least one cup, a ritual that gets them through the day. I haven't tasted the stuff, but I know its important because Sasuke practically worships it. I am sweating from my place on the red mat, uncomfortably so, and the heat makes me drowsy. Being four years old and me isn't an easy combination, and I was content to curl up into Sasuke's arms and fall into dreamless slumber. But something bothered me in the back of my mind, something moving this way that's more important than I realize, and I cannot pinpoint it exactly in the foggy haze of heat. My brothers continued to talk on, oblivious to the thing I feel moving. And I turn to Itachi, saying ''Tachi, I-' before the front door opens and everyone freezes. Mikoto is home early. And we all knew she heard me. She flutters into the room like a butterfly, because my mother has all kinds of grace and indescribable beauty, and her eyes linger on us as my brothers try to keep up awkward conversation to distract form us being caught. I lay my head back onto Sasuke's arm try to go to sleep there, but her eyes burn into my back like fire. And the fire burns. I felt tears prickling my eyes and shame welling in me, because I have disobeyed. I have brought a certain level of disgrace to myself in doing so. I knew there will be punishment, and I hid in Sasuke's arm to escape the beginning of them. And when the time came, it was Utaka who carried me into my room, who helped my pudgy toddler hands to pull on my night gown, and stroked my hair as the house suddenly becomes a battle ground when Fugaku comes home, to be confronted by his wife, and for him to confront Itachi. And the fight that ensued over my first word and my right to words changed the course of my life forever. Instead of punishment, Fugaku put a kunai into my little hands, and turned around to leave. He would never teach me another lesson quite like those first ones, and even thought I grow older and change I still remember them as if they are burned into my mind by fire. My punishment for speaking was the attentions of my father, and from that day on I always felt as if I had lost a battle meant to be won.

After that day, I was allowed to venture far from the house without the chaperon of at least one of my family members. The freedom was almost worth the overall experience to get there. As soon as Shisui put me on my feet, on the soft grass, I took off running straight into the forest, into the shadow of the everlasting oaks. It was a place I had always wanted to go to, the forest. It appealed to me the way peoples words did, in a strange, detected way as one would view a picture of a place they would like to be. Running was a freedom that I didn't often have. So when I finally had it, I took it in running stride. The forest had never ending hiding places and so many places that I could explore, and it was a good, long summer of discovering all its secrets. I was so interested in it that the moment I woke up to the moment the sun set, I was in the green expanse. Mikoto didn't call me home at all. I think, in the back of my mind, she pretended that I wasn't alive during those times, and it must have been easy for her. I was, after all, a ghost of shame that was carefully taught to never leave a trace of myself behind. And for that its almost like I never existed. My aunt did call me home sometime, to spend the day baking or shopping, but those became rare. I think it unsettled them that I was using words now, that I was developing my own personality. But really, it didn't matter much to me. As the summer of my fourth year moved on, when my brothers weren't home, I started spending every second I got under the canopy of green. Sometimes, I never came home at all. I lived like a wild woman there. I lost my one pair of shoes in a shrub and never found them, so I opted to go barefoot. Fugaku didn't notice, and Mikoto didn't want to replace them. I didn't mind. I liked going barefoot. So it began a long period of time in which the trees were a solace I told everything to. They were some of my best friends. My precious people, my quiet friends.

I learned to clean knives, to handle knives, and to throw knives. They were always heavy and cold in my hands, much to big for a four year old, off balance in my fingers. Training with my brothers is like putting a pebble against a mountain, my little advantage of seeing their chakra doesn't compare to their raw power. And every night I went to bed aching and cold and hurting from head to toe, and in the morning I always woke with tight, overused muscles, and to me the gap between us never even started to be filled. With everything I learned, they had something even wiser. With every move I make they have the perfect counter. They pushed me to the limit of what I can do, but not in the way Fugaku did. I looked forward to training with them. I look forward to their attention in the ways I looked forward to speaking my secrets to the trees. They would never tell of my failures. In fact, I always believed that they would speak kindly of me forever. And perhaps I was right, but I never got to test the theory. When we were not training, Utaka took me to the village library, helping me through the mounds of books until I could sound out every word and deduce the meaning from behind it. We spent more time in the library as Itachi, Sasuke, and Shisui started leaving more often. Utaka had opted to take a Genin team when he went became jonin, much to Fugaku and uncle Isamo's disappointment, and spent his time in the village and on small, short missions. This left Utaka mainly to myself, although sharing him with his students was never a big deal to me. They adored me in ways others in the clan did not, even the single Uchiha boy on the team liked me more than anyone else in the Clan let on. The Uchiha boys name was Hironori, a member of the main family, son of a simple solider. To him, being the student of Utaka, a member of the secondary family, is like winning the lottery, and he holds it in high esteem. And I suppose, getting to know me as he has when Utaka brings me around his students for the day, has given him even more pride, because I was a member of the head family, female or not, and the head family was always held to the status of virtual kingship. My relationship with him was a distant playful, as he often played tag with me after his training, even though I outran him every time. The other two on the squad, two girls, were bigger role models to me than I wanted them to be. Because they were female shinobi, kunoichi, and that to me was as much a feat as any. Chiyo, the prettier one with skin white as paper and eyes green as the trees, was often my playmate, even if she was not as much fun as Kazuko, the other girl with bright blonde hair and dark skin. But I liked Chiyo because of the way she spoke, because she had a grace to her that I only ever saw in my mother, and she was a weapons user. And she taught me more than just throwing knives.

But in the autumn of my fourth year, all three pass on to chunin and Utaka is back on regular missions. All my playmates gone, I was for a while left to my own devices until I got into trouble with a neighboring family that resulted in purple bruises and a dead dog. After that day, Fugaku saw it fit to punish me for 'disrupting the neighbors animals' with a training regimen that had me passing out at the dinner table and bleeding on the garden grass. It was so intense that I often blacked out before it was done. My four year old body wasn't that of a man or of the jonin that completed the exercises with ease. And sense all my brothers were on month long missions, I was left to the mercy of my cruel father who was never there but wrote on paper what he wanted me to do, and aunt Miyuki to see it done. She stood at the edge of the training grounds, arms crossed with her wild spiky hair going everywhere, and stared down her straight nose at me as I struggle to complete the assignment. Aunt Miyuki was my aunt by marriage; she married uncle Kagami and bore him Shisui, Kagami who is Fugaku's youngest brother. Utaka had often told me that there was another son, a first son named Obito, but that he died a long time ago, and that solidified that out of four families that make up the secondary branch my close relatives all had one son. The other two families in the secondary branch were distant relations through the younger siblings of my great grandfather, but after these third cousins marry they will no longer be in the secondary family because they are to distinctly related to my brothers and me. Then, Sasuke and I will become the main secondary family and Shisui and Utaka's children will remain in the secondary family until their great grandchildren. It is, in reality, a very confusing structure, but an old one at the same time. Aunt Miyuki is Uncle Kagami's third cousin, whose family dropped out of the secondary family when Fugaku was named clan head. I suppose it isn't as large and confusing as it used to be, in older times the secondary family was large and sprawling, mostly due to large families in times of war, with rules and regulations set to them by birth because they were technically supposed to be the clan heads support system. Since my grandfather is an only child, the secondary family is now small, and besides my uncles, they are distant. I've only ever meet any of them with my grandfather or a brother in toe, and they didn't look or speak to me. Both families are large, all having lots of children, the closest to me in age were my third cousins, the youngest in both families, which consisted of six willowy long boys and three girl. One of those girls, as is customary, will marry one of my brothers, and another will likely be arranged with Utaka. On the afternoons that I wasn't training, which was seldom because it appeared that aunt Miyuki never had anything to do but watch me, my Grandfather Tamotsu ushered me to the my third cousins door and made me sit with the three girls. Yukari and Hiroko were sisters of only a few years apart, who inherited the sharpness of eyes and long, pointed faces. They weren't exactly pretty, but their skills were formidable and as Shisui liked to put it, 'Their virgins.' I don't know if that's supposed to be good, but the way he says it I think he's making fun of them. The third is their first cousin by birth, and third cousin by their mother's marriage, and she was honored as the most beautiful girl in the whole clan. Everyone knew that Asa will marry Itachi, one day, because her beauty was so great and her skills were formidable. But she wasn't a fighter, she was pampered and use to the attention. She thought herself already clan head wife and she treated Itachi as such and scowled at me every time I was in the room. For this reason, those afternoons spend with my back straight in the household of the secondary family I never really knew were more painful them I liked to admit. I kept up my silence, and the girls ignored me. Sometimes, they would inquire how my brothers were fairing. They were very interested in Itachi because he was heir, and they were interested in Sasuke and Shisui because they were attractive, and every time they make me want to puke. So I started making sure that aunt Miyuki was home so that I could suffer through training and not spending time with the clan princesses, and worked myself to pass out every time to avoid having to go. My grandfather often watched from the kitchen table, peering over steaming tea, and when I fall to my face he is the one who picks me up and caries me away, where his son will not.

When my brothers return from their mission, they are furious with Fugaku. They examine every battered and beaten part of my body and take that as evidence why to avoid him as much as possible. Shisui took it upon himself to not speak to his mother for a good week, until she broke down and screamed at him. As the red leaves fall from the trees, I spent my now free schedule with my grandfather at our kitchen table, piles of books and poems and scrolls I borrowed from the library stacked next to his tea cup as I read through history and math, great literature and science spreadsheet out in stanzas before me. My grandfather, himself, was a particular man. While Fugaku was obvious in his dislike of me, my grandfather never showed any dislike or like either. He was simply neutral in a war that cannot be won, and I think he has chosen the best side. Being against me with the rest of the clan could have been easy, and being for me with my brothers and uncles could have been hard, but he has chosen a stranger route. Sometimes, though, I feel as if he does like me. I believe that he remembers what it was like to grow without a father and because of that was generous with his attractions. My grandfather was born three months after Madara Uchiha, his father, fled the village. He was raised by his mother and secondary family men, until he turned thirteen and his mother gave him the title of his father. From there, he built up the broken trust between the head family and the main family, and became a most trusted leader. Then, in his old age of seventy, he has little energy and has little use. He is the head elder of the clan, but doesn't attend the meetings anymore. He doses often and spits fireballs at children who stray into his yard, just to see them scatter. And I spend that winter with him, because he liked to hear me read. When he spoke to me, it was always either a command, or a speech about pride and clan honor. Sometimes he would watch me go through Taijutsu forms, but he never had to teach me anything. Out of all of my relatives, he was the one I trusted the most. I could tell him anything, and he would never be fazed. To test the theory, I told him that I thought Asa was a shriveling demon in an angel's body. He glances at me over his tea and stared at me a long time, and I stared back intently, willing emotion to show on his face. He only grunts, his favorite reply, and look back down, 'I was wondering when someone would have the balls to say that.' I saw the edges of his mouth twitch upwards. It gave me enough satisfaction to last the rest of the day, and even say 'Welcome home,' to Fugaku when he passes me in the hallway. He glances at me, surprised, but keeps on walking.

When I hit twenty bulls' eyes in a row in February, my brothers took me for Dango. Since the whole fiasco with Fugaku and aunt Miyuki, they have spent most their time in the village for the winter months and only left for long periods of time at night. That gave me tons of time to spend around them, and even some time to go back around Utaka's team. Hironori and I train in the southern Uchiha training field, where no one really goes, and I find myself keeping up with him, using what little advantage I have to get the better of him almost half the time. He's a good shinobi, at the age of fourteen, and will likely make it to jonin that summer and be an asset to the clan as his father is. He tells me often about the happenings of the main family, which is like all the drama of the secondary and head families amplified by the hundreds of people in the main family. The main family, in older times the fighting and civilian force of the clan, is a lot smaller than it used to be but is still in the hundreds. One upon a time, there used to be thousands of Uchiha at one time, but those times have dwindled along with all other clans. Hironori opens my eyes to the world beyond the secondary family, and I realize that they aren't quite as uptight as the people I'm use to. Even the three princesses don't seem to bother me anymore, because in reality the times grandfather makes me spend with them are times in which I learn and gather gossip that I find interesting, and I can go back to my grandfather and tell him what I've heard, and the corners of his mouth will twitch upwards. Often, Asa, Yukari, and Hiroko had other clan girls gather at their house for sitting circles and tea. And so, I strike friendships with others in the clan my age, all the bottom of the barrel clan civilians who have ancestors that never activated the sharringan and therefore have to be stuck at the bottom of the food chain. But they are kind to me, and I find that people aren't as awful as I make the out to be. Hironori is with us when we go out for Dango and I realize he must have known my brothers for some time before. He elbows me in the arm. I give him a face. My brothers conversations are low and hushed, their husky voices soothing to my four year old ears and I find myself falling asleep on Shisui's lap before I hear someone say, 'Missions are picking up again.' I immediately hone in on the voice, one that I did not know, and focus on the unknown chakra. I know from the color that it isn't anyone from the clan, because all clan members have various shades of red and brown, so I crack open my eyes to focus on the person who spoke. I meet eyes with a boy, a man by experience, with the darkest red hair I've ever seen, and eyes a golden brown. He is stroking his goatee and half smiling at me, and I blink to see if it's real. 'Kitten,' Itachi tells me, plucking me from Shisui's lap and standing me on the booth leather, right in front of the man. 'This is Koyoski. He's on my squad.' The meanings behind his words were that this man is a friend, and that I should trust him. And I suppose, in that moment, I do. Because Koyoski took me up into his arms and examined me further, his eyes kind and his smile rather large. 'So this is the kitten I hear so much about,' he muses, 'She's beautiful, Itachi.' He tells my brother as if I am his child, and I suppose I am. 'I know,' Itachi says. I don't think I like being picked up by strangers, but he seems nice enough and I have a feeling I'm going to have to know him some day. 'call me Koyo, baby girl,' he says, shifting me on his hip so that he can stick out one hand for me to shake, and since I cannot wrap my hand around his I shake two of his fingers and then squirm down, running under the table and back to Itachi. They all laugh. Itachi pulls me up from under the table to sit in his lap and I gaze out at others behind Koyo, seven in all, two girls and five boys. They were all of varying ages, youngest being twelve and oldest being in his twenties. 'Kitten,' Sasuke tells me, taking my hand in his and pointing to the people, 'meet the squad.' And so I meet them. And they called themselves the Raisan.

The next week, Sasuke becomes an ANBU and Itachi becomes ANBU captain. It was a big moment in clan history, obscured by pride and secrecy. Uchiha are not generally trusted with becoming anything of real importance to the village leadership, and the clan heads sons being this close in the village structure was something that sparked no small amount of pride and excitement around the clan. Even my grandfather smiled. Asa nearly swooned when she heard the news. But when I walked past Sasuke's room that night, I swear I heard someone crying.

Itachi had been an ANBU for quite some time, with his own squad that's called the Raisan squad, and now he will be leading it. And it was then that I realize the importance of meeting that squad. I was welcomed within its borders, given land there to plow and make a home. They accepted me in a way I never understood, with open arms and high expectations. The more time Itachi spent with his squad, the more I saw them. They were ghosts on the horizon, all of them, just colors of the setting sun that no one notices. The ANBU works in this way, in shadows and cracks in the sidewalk. You never know they're there unless they want you too, and I often find myself waking up at night with the feeling of eyes on me, only to look out my window to see familiar red hair behind a porcline mask. This only occurs when my brothers are on missions, as the weather turns warmer and the leaves start to sprout on trees. My brothers didn't trust me to be safe alone with my family, and more often than not I had an ANBU friend who watched over me in the shadows like a guardian angel. And when my brothers were in the village but unavailable, one of the two girls from the squad came to my front door. Her name is Sayuri, a medical ninja of high esteem in the hospital status, who only goes on ANBU missions when they are of serious importance, and knows my brothers through mutual acquaintance. It became known to me through our many conversations sitting on the ground in front of my house that she and Sasuke see each other often, although I don't know what that is supposed to mean. Sayuri herself is more beautiful than Asa, she is pink haired and has eyes the color of honey, always with a blush to her cheeks and feminine quality that radiates grace. When Asa and her cousins see her lurking around my house, they start a vicious rumor that bans Sayuri from entering the Uchiha compound. So, when she comes to the gates, I always meet her there. She brings me to the hospital, where the smell of death and bitter medicine lingers in the air, and we visit the civilian wing, meeting with people and talking with them. I feel, after I made friends and then came back to find them dead, that I want to be able to help these people. I want to make them better, to make them stop hurting. I tell Sayuri this and she starts to teach me the basics about healing jutsu. It's the first jutsu I ever worked with, one simple seal and a lot of chakra control is all that's needed, and I go to the library and borrow mountains of books on the healing arts, studying until late at night and practicing in the light of day. It becomes something of an obsession, one that drives me forward and takes up my time like the intense training once did. Sayuri hangs over my shoulder as I try to heal fish. She is always gentle and kind. She tells me, 'You know, baby girl, you might just be good at this.' I tell myself, one day, I want to be Sayuri.

February waned on, and March came with rain and tentative cold. The cold seemed to drip into our household that became more so empty than before. Mikoto is often gone, doing whatever it is she does, and my grandfather has moved to my uncles house to live for the summer. So I was left, mostly, alone with my ANBU and sometimes Sayuri. But everyone was busy and had things they should be doing when they were not, and gaining their attention was harder than saw fit for it to be. But there was nothing I could do, and I spent most my afternoons with the three princesses, content with hanging in their houses as they gather around their games of cards. And it was one of those days where Fugaku appeared at their front door, looking rather formal, and was invited in just as formally. I peer at him through the rice paper walls as he speaks with the elder in charge of this house, one of my grandfather's cousins named Junichi. Junichi was Yurika and Hiroko's grandfather, as well as half of the boys that are my age in the secondary family, and he is the most prideful man I have ever met. He strides into the room where I am having tea with his granddaughters and motions to me with his hand. I follow, almost detected by curiosity. I've never had grownups have interest in me and despite how many times I come to his house I never speak to Junichi personally. Fugaku is situated at their table, staring gruffly at everything in the room, as if evaluating careful some unknown choice. He doesn't say hi to me, but does glance my way as I settle next to him. Across the table, another family is situated, but both parents are present. Across from me sits a boy, about two years older than me, with a crop of brown black hair on his head and a relatively attractive face, for his age. He is scowling at me, and I scowled back just because he is scowling. But our parents talk on, without noticing us. The two that sit here are my second cousins, a young couple that most defiantly didn't marry because of an arranged marriage, and they turn to us and shuffle us out. The woman says, 'You two go and get acquainted.' I have no idea what she is talking about, but I go out with him anyway, to the backyard with a swing on a tree and sand under it. I settle at the edge, in the grass. He settles on the swing. 'I'm Kat-' but he stops me. 'I don't care what your name is.' I snap my mouth shut. I've never come across someone who dared to speak to me like he did and it unsettled me. I had the impression that everyone who isn't family is nice, but this boy isn't nice. He is being really mean. 'What's your name?' he scowls at me, 'You don't know my name?' 'No,' I tell him, fiddling with the edge of my dress. A simple blue shift. It suddenly feels to tight. 'Why don't you know my name?' he inquired. 'I never meet you before,' I tell him. His face screws up like he ate something sour and I suddenly don't think he's so cute. 'I never meet you and I know your name. Everyone does,' he tells me. I don't know what to tell him. 'I'm sorry,' I settle on, 'but I still don't know your name.' he throws me a dirty look before straightening and the pride in his voice is there when he says, 'Ichiro Uchiha,' he tells me, as if I'm not an Uchiha too. 'Nice to meet you,' I mumble. We sit in silence. Ichiro glares into the house as if he could see the table and hear the conversation. I watch it too, because out of the both of us I'm more likely to hear something. I can feel their chakras move. 'You know what they're talking about?' Ichiro says, suddenly, jumping off the swing. I stand. He is about a foot taller than me even though he is only a few years older. 'No,' I say. 'They're going to make us get married,' he says and studies my face to see my reaction, 'We are to be betrothed.' 'Oh,' I tell him, but I really couldn't care less. It doesn't matter to me that this point who I marry, that's a far ways away and in the mean time I have a lot to do. This boy doesn't mean much to me. But, apparently, this is a big deal. 'Don't you have anything else to say?' he asks and the scowls, 'This is the rest of your life.' 'It's the clan wants,' I tell him. His scowl deepens, 'No, it's what our parents want.' 'My father is the clan,' I tell him, 'he's the head of it.' That seems to shock Ichiro, to the bone maybe. He stares at me and for a moment I think he is going to cry. His eyes run up and down me and the he stomps up to me as if he can prove he is bigger and better. 'I don't know about that,' he says, 'but I don't wanna marry you.' He pauses and glances down, 'besides, your ankles are fat.' I am shocked as he stalks away. I never meet anyone who has the balls enough to outright insult me before, and meeting that for the first time is enough to make my anger boil over more than it ever has. My fist ball up, my jaw clenches tight, and I become very still trying to hold in ever emotion I tried so hard to beat out of me. When Fugaku appears in the doorway, warily looking at me, I stomp after him and follow him home. He opens the door and stands there, looking down at me. I seethe hot anger but I don't look at him. 'Look at me,' he commands. It's the first time in a long time I have looked in his eyes, and the first time in forever that he willingly looked into mine. He takes my chin in his hand and tilts it upwards so I don't look at him through my lashes. 'I expect you to do what you must,' he tells me, 'no arguments. No setbacks. Do you understand?' I blurt out, 'he doesn't like me.' It's the first time I ever willingly talked to him. He stares down at me with some unknown emotion in his eyes; I cannot place any of them. His cold, callused hand is stiff on my chin. It's the first contact I have ever shared with him. 'He perhaps never will,' he tells me, 'but he knows his duty.' I don't like the fact that marriage to me would be duty. Like something unpleasant you don't want but have to have anyway for the sake of people you don't really know. 'Father,' I say, because in that second I feel like I almost have one, lurking in the background of my life, watching me grow with some unknown emotion in his eyes, 'Will I ever be happy?' He is silent for a long time before saying, 'No.' he walks back inside. I wait out at the door. There aren't very many people out today, who all ignored the scene to the best of their abilities. I feel ignored, and unwanted, and someone's duty, and it makes me hurt on the inside to think about all that. I think that Fugaku doesn't want me to be happy and that's why I never will. He will make sure of it. And all because I was a girl. I see through the distant haze of dying light Sasuke, walking with one of the tall ANBU, getting uneasy glances from everyone around them, and I wait for him to come up to me. I open my fists and find blood coming from the cresant moon shaped nail marks in my palm. Then I bury my hands in the fabric of his pants leg and he glances down to look at me momentarily in talking, stops, glances again, and then continues what he is saying. I shove my face in the bend of his knee, and his hand caught some of my hair in his fingers. A second later, he scoops me up and walks back inside the house. I nuzzle into the space between his shoulder and refuse to come out. Sasuke just sighs and settles on the floor in front of his paperwork, letting me have my fit in silence. When Itachi comes home, he stops in the doorway and I feel his eyes on us. 'What happened,' Itachi asks. 'I don't know,' Sasuke replies back. I bury my head deeper and curl my fists around fabric, but Itachi has me by the waist and lifts me off my brothers shoulder to sit me in front of them, so I have to either look at the ground or in their faces. I opted to look at the ground. Sasuke pulls the hair out of my face and settles in next to our brother. They have worry lines. I don't feel guilty. 'What happened, little Kat?' Itachi asks. I feel tears bubble in my eyes and my lower lips starts to shake and I open my mouth and yell, 'I'm betrothed!' I take another big, long breath and yelled, 'And he said my ankles are fat!" And then fat tears are sliding down my face and I curl up and cry for a good hour because I feel completely betrayed and hurt and hopeless. It's the first time I remember crying, really crying, and feeling the emotion that comes with it. And Itachi curls me into his lap and strokes my hair until I calm down, but for days after that I sulked around, feeling utterly betrayed.

Ichiro and I spend most of April together, although I have a habit of slipping away from him to go find Hironori or Mariko, a girl I know from the clan whose father is a baker. They are better friends to me that Ichiro ever was. If Fugaku or Ichiro's parents ever noticed our hatred for one another, they never let on. They stood kind and stiff, with fake smiles on their faces when I formally meet them, and ignored Ichiro and I sending dirty looks at each other across the dinner table. This was, after all, their only was of getting into the head family, and they have to play their cards right to get that valued spot of honor. Apparently, a lot of people had wanted to marry me and I couldn't help but think Fugaku could have chosen better. I mean, anyone else in the clan would have been better than Ichiro. But of course, his parents were very important to the clan's stability and good friends with Fugaku. It was all political bullshit. Ichiro realized that before I did, and he was so unhappy he was willing to start playground dating another clan girl just to be rebellious. Her name was Tsukiko. She was a year older than me and very pretty, with dark brown hair and eyes bigger than her face. She was also meaner than a hellion. I never went to the playground, but the rumors began to spread. Mariko would run faster than lightning, which she is known for, to my house, and we would talk over the garden ledge wall. 'They hold hands everywhere,' she tells me. In all honesty, I was more relieved than worried. Maybe Fugaku would hear about it and not let me marry him anymore. If he has a girlfriend, then it would get him out of the picture. Apparently, this only served to bring me into more and more conversations around the clan. People began to notice me more, as the betrothal was announced formally and the puzzled clan turned to Tsukiko's parents asking for answers. Apparently, I forced him into betrothal, and that was what stirred more rumors about my birth. Vicious rumors. Mariko tells me, 'the grownups think you aren't Fugaku-sama's child. They say that he has a bastard living in his house, whatever that means.' 'Do your parents think that?' I ask her. She shakes her head, 'Mother does. But Father loves Fugaku-sama. That is where his allegiance lies.' 'So?' I ask, 'What does that mean?' 'It means,' Mariko says, rolling her eyes and focusing on me intently, in a way no one but her ever does, 'that Fugaku-sama supports you, and so long as Fugaku-sama supports you, then my father will.' I discover through those conversations, that the head family is like a spirit to those of the main family. You appease your ancestor spirits with gifts, leaving good smelling incense at the altar, but you never meet the spirits. You never have contact with them. They protect you from above like omnipotent creatures you neither fear nor conversant with. That's how the head family is seen by those of our clan. The normal solider expects us to be protecting spirits in the guise of our ancestors, that fight for them no matter what adversity. That is why they follow the head family so blindly. We are a pure reincarnation of the greatness our ancestors once held, and the power of their position. It was installed into their minds to follow us. And Fugaku, like so many before, bore the impression of the perfect spirit. And as all perfect spirits before him, he was followed blindly. And when Fugaku stood up against the rumors, one day in early May, the mouths of gossips snapped shut onto their tongues. Fugaku was boiling mad. When he passed me in the hallway, he spun around as I passed, grabbed my hair, and slapped me across the face so hard it bruises for weeks after.

After that, most of the clan avoids me again, but I can feel them thinking about me in the back of their minds, I feel it like eyes, watching, waiting, evaluating. The rumor that started as rebellion from a young boy quickly burned into a blazing inferno. Mikoto's reputation was once again ran through the mud. Whispers of adultery radiate through the air, and this time Fugaku doesn't do anything to quell them. Mikoto, although the mother of his children, is left to fend for herself. This doesn't bother me much. She is gone from the house so much; I don't doubt that she is having an affair. Perhaps, she has been having one for a long time. And although the rumors are vicious, she doesn't try to make any of them better. Instead, she makes it more publicly known that she is having an affair. And being the head wife, she doesn't get any grief about it. But I know Fugaku does. I know that the elder are berating him about his wild wife, about his shameful daughter, and I know his patience runs thin. Most the clan, however, is oblivious to what is happening. Everyone in the secondary and head families work to ensure that Mikoto's adultery and my broken betrothal are kept only within the close family. But that doesn't stop people from whispering furiously behind our backs. You can't stop the whispers. My brothers worked to make sure I never heard any of them, but Mariko still meet me at our secret hiding places, and we still talked about the rumors, though less and less as time waned. We played in the midst of the tragedy. She was my best friend. Our meetings happened more often, and the more I was gone the more Itachi encouraged me finding a friend. Mariko in my life made him happy. But when Mikoto strikes back, everything crumbles apart. It was in May, when the heat stuck to my face slightly, the summer just on the cuffs of full blown warmth, when Shisui met me at the Nakano River. He had a very urgent look on his face, one that not even the clan's golden boy looked quite right with. He scoops me up into his arms and I settle in there uneasily. It's not as it always was. When we walked back to his house, he sets me on the front porch and tells me, 'Go inside and lay down. I'll be in there in a bit, okay, baby Kat?' I nod obediently, and watch him walk off. I speed through the house before Aunt Miyuki could see me and go into Shisui's room, curling into a cocoon in his blankets. They smelled of water. The compound is silent but there are flares of chakra in the distance, the blood red of Fugaku's, the sunset color of Mikoto, Aunt Yuuta, Uncle Kagami, and another signature that I cannot directly place. I drift off into sleep, it was my nap time after all, and when I hear the door open, I recognize Sasuke there. I open my drowsy eyes and poke my head out of the blankets, smiling at him, but he doesn't smile back. He lifts me up and settles in my place with me in his arms, and its comforting and warm there. He rubs my back in worried circles. I glance up at him and ask, 'What's wrong broder?' he looks down at me from out the window. 'Things are about to get a little crazy,' he tells me, 'a little bit scary. But me and Big Brother Itachi, we are gunna be here the whole time.' My four year old mind didn't quite process what he was telling me. I hum and bury my hands in his shirt. He pecks a kiss on my forehead. I drift back to sleep, but somewhere in the expanse between dreams and reality I feel Itachi moving towards us and I rustle dosing Sasuke to tell him that Itachi draws near. He says 'be on alert Kitten. There are people out there who lust for your life.' I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean but I go with it anyway and try to keep my sensing abilities at full range from then on out. Itachi entered the room and curls up with us in bed. He seems exhausted. I give his hand a squeeze, and he squeezes back, and after a while both my brothers are deep asleep. I even manage to slip out of bed, looking out the window, which is dark with night time and heavy with humidity. I slide the door open without a sound and go out into the hallway, looking for the hallway, but instead seeing the light coming from the living room and following that like a fly. I can hear my aunt and uncle, whispering between themselves, in a conversation I am sure I'm not supposed to hear. I almost leave before I hear, '…she started a war, Kagami. A dangerous, stupid one.' 'But that was her own decision,' Uncle Kagami says back to Aunt Miyuki, 'If she wants to ruin her position, then that's on her. But bringing that man around, and claiming that child is his daughter. That's a betrayal. She's admitting not only the affair but that Fugaku's shame isn't even his own, and we both know that isn't true. We had her linage tested when she was small. We both know how Fugaku feels about her.' I have a striking moment when I realize that they are speaking about me and then I can almost hear Aunt Miyuki push her lips together. 'I'm telling you, Kagami, she started a war,' she says, 'She isn't going to give up her position, nor her affair, and not her children. She is the wife and mother of the clan head and his children, and she will forever hold that power so long as she is mother of Fugaku's heir. But at the same time, she is disgracing Fugaku hoping to keep the best of both worlds, and Fugaku wouldn't let her keep that power, he will either kill the bastard she is whoring for or he will take away the children. But she wouldn't give up, and neither will Fugaku.' Both are silent for more than a minute. My mouth has long since gone dry. I can't make myself move and I cannot breathe properly. Finally, uncle Kagami says, 'It's shameful enough that we must involve the children. I fear that Sasuke will chose her side and I fear what will happen to Katana. Above all else, it is our jobs to keep them out of this war.' I finally have the mind to turn and walk away, slowly, down the hallway, and to open the door to Shisui's room. I feel numb, numb and confused, even more so when I spot Shisui sitting on the side of his bed, with Itachi and Sasuke asleep within it, and he holds out his arms to me. I talk a few walking steps before gradually running and throwing myself around his neck, burying my face in his shoulder, and he wraps me in his arms. And as soon as I'm there, all my bottled up stress reaches a boiling point, and I fall asleep with angry tears on my eyelashes.

The next day is dark and cloudy, and I am panicked because I do not know the room I am in. and then the night before hits me like train and I remember everything all at once, even though I don't want to. Itachi, Sasuke, Shisui, and Utaka are situated around a low table in front of the open rice paper wall, showing the garden behind. Each one has a coffee cup in their hands and are speaking softly of important clan matters. I haven't yet stirred, I've always been quiet even when full blown shinobi, but I sneeze and I know they know I'm awake. 'Bless you,' Utaka says, his back to me, and he doesn't turn around. 'Tank you,' I murmur. It'd been a long day yesterday and tiredness held heavy in my mind, so I roll over, bury deeper, and try to find sleep. They lower their voices even more so that I cannot hear them, but I can feel the angry feeling of their chakra burning holes into my brain. The headache is real, though I'm not sure if it's from the strong amount of chakra in the room or the dripping tension that's filling the air. Both, I guess, dig into my skull and make burrows in my brain. I clutch over my ears and close my eyes tight, trying to stop myself from feeling anything and in doing so shift my leg and slam my foot into the wall. I groan, gripping my popped big toe. I untangle myself from the sheets and sit up, inspecting it, and popping it back into place fast. The pain surges down my leg but I bite my lip and tell myself I can handle it, because my brothers are having an important conversation. Itachi comes to me, takes my hands away so he can look at it, and then kisses his finger and puts the kiss on the pad of my big toe. 'You're alright, kitten?' he asks. I shake my head no. the conversation that my aunt and uncle had last night was gnawing away at my brain, with the head ache, and the pain in my toe. I don't look at Itachi. The spying was strictly forbidden for me, despite me doing it all the time, because if I didn't no one would tell me anything. The punishment could be bad for me, but I had to know what kinda war Fugaku and Mikoto were waging, and how it involved us. 'It's not broken, Kat. You'll live,' Itachi says. I shake my head. 'I heard aunt Miyuki and uncle Kagami talking last night,' I tell him. I see him stiffen through the glare of the morning light. I wasn't supposed to hear grownups talk, but I still do. And I did now, but it was the first time I regretted it, when Itachi stares at me with calculating eyes he's never turned to me before. I don't like them. I turn my eyes away. 'Look at me,' Itachi says. I glance up, but am unable to hold his eyes. I look away. 'What did you hear, Katana?' it was the first time he ever used my real name. He knows I don't like it. I don't like being people's weapon. But the use of it tells me the seriousness of the situation, and I look back up nearly in tears. 'They said that Mother and Father are at war,' I tell him. ''Tachi, why are mother and father fighting?' he stares at me, trying to discern the meaning behind my words, but I think that he already knows. 'Sometimes,' Itachi says back, 'Sometimes, grownups do things that are hurtful just to hurt other grownups. And sometimes, things happen and they get angry at each other.' 'What did mother do?' he stares at me. 'Something she shouldn't have,' he settles on. Then he looks away at the now silent table as if searching for the words. I think about what he said, and decide that grownups are stupid. 'Is father and mother gunna hurt each other?' Itachi looks back at me and his eyes are sharp, 'No, I don't think so.' I think more about it. 'Are you gunna hurt mother?' his eyes are sharper and he almost glares at me, a spark of confusion behind them. 'Why do you ask that?' 'Because, aunt Miyuki said that Sasuke would take mothers side, and you would take fathers. Does that mean your gunna hurt mother?' Itachi lets out a breath almost like a sigh and pulls me into his lap, where I curl up and tuck my chin over my knees. 'No one is going to hurt anyone. And if they do, little girls have no reason to know. No more eavesdropping, kitten. You're going to stay here with Shisui for a bit while we clean up some messes, and you aren't to leave, nor is anyone besides your cousins and Aunt Miyuki and Uncle Kagami allowed to come see you. Stay here, do you understand?' I nod. He runs his fingers through my hair. I tell him, 'I think grownups are stupid.' He laughs. Then I climb back into bed and watch them leave, all but Shisui who curls up with me in bed and taps rhythms on my back. When I open my eyes later, the room is empty, and the sun is high in the sky. The access energy that all four year olds have is enough to drive me mad, but I really can't use it. I don't like walking around Shisui's house because aunt Miyuki is here, and she is unforgiving in her glares. Sometimes, I think she wishes she had Mikoto's life. I don't blame her. She would have made a better head wife. But it didn't matter then, because I had pent up energy, so I went to walking around the house, all the walls are open and the doors stand open wide, open to the garden, but Itachi told me no to leave. I might even be disobeying just by leaving Shisui's room. But Shisui isn't in the house and I am alone. My aunt and uncle have gone somewhere; I can feel them move thought the clan, maybe doing some type of damage control. I can also feel Shisui, with my brothers. So, being left to my own devices, with too much energy, I ended up doing laps around the kitchen table, trying to get rid of all the hyper before Shisui got home. I stopped looking around for anyone coming near the house because I decide it's not important, and that's when I hear a knock on the door. I stop dead in my track, extending my second sight to feel my mother at the door, but the faint feeling of another man was enough to stop me from going to her. I remember Sasuke telling me that someone was 'lusting for my life' and I remember the chakra feeling at our house yesterday. It was the same chakra. It was unforgivingly bright red, and I knew it was Uchiha because it had a certain flare. I hear Mikoto's voice, just outside the door, calling to me in a voice so sweet honey could have dripped from it. I put my guard up. I know it was Mikoto's chakra, but it wasn't her normal self. It sounded forced and different. I walk to peer around the corner at the front door, which has slid open to show my mother standing in the light coming in from it. Another man is standing with her, hand to the small of her back, his eyes on me which seem genially kind. 'Katana, sweetheart,' Mikoto calls. She waves as if I can't see her. 'Come on, sweetie. We're going home, alright?' Mikoto was use to the obedient daughter, but she never had to deal with her daughter on orders. The longer I stood peering at her the more visibly upset she became. The man glances between us, but he seems to have been shunned to silence by Mikoto. She motions to me like I'm a dog, glancing back behind her. I know that she can't come in. there is a seal on the wall that forbids anyone who is not welcomed from entering unless they have knowledge of seals, and Mikoto has only knowledge of a shinobi of her stature. We are not as good in seals as Aunt Miyuki. So she must get me onto the dirt in front of the front door to get me anywhere. 'Katana,' she says, growing agitated. 'Come on. I have someone for you to meet. This is Katsu, your father. Don't you want to meet him?' 'That's not my father,' I tell her, finally poking my head out father. I look closely at him. It's true the man is very attractive, he has hair long and silky and straight like mine, pronounced cheekbones like mine, but in reality Mikoto has these things too. 'People have lied to you all your life, Katana,' she tells me. 'Come with me and I'll tell you the truth.' 'Itachi told me not to go anywhere,' I tell her. Anger flashes in her eyes, 'you listen to your brother and not your mother?' 'You're acting kinda weird,' I tell her. Anger flares again, 'Katana Uchiha, get out here right this minute. I'm going to make a better life for us. A life that isn't weighted down by duty and control, where no one will control us ever again. Wouldn't you like that? Don't you want to be free?' I stand there and stare at her, and I think she's gone inane. 'I want to go home.' 'I'll take you home.' She says softly, 'if that's what you want. How about I take you back to Fugaku? Would you like that?' I nod slowly. I take on step out of the shadows and into the light. Katsu studies me under his thick eyelashes. 'Come on,' Mikoto says. I survey her chakra more, because Mikoto is never this nice to me and I really want to know what is going on. And in that split second that I am studying, I notice a flicker of blue under the perfect veil of sunset red. And then I take another step forward and focus on the man, who seems to be the utter perfection of the chakra, but all at once I know it isn't true. 'Mother,' I say, tapping my big toe on the wood, 'you can't get through.' She furrows her eyebrows and then says, 'I know that, Katana.' 'Mother,' I tell her again, because she doesn't know that Mikoto, if she was really Mikoto, wouldn't know that she can't get through as of last night. She would think she could never get in. 'Mother,' I tell her, 'Why can't you come in?' both of them freeze. I look at the man and watch his fingers work in tight circles on the wood. Then I get an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, as chakra swirls around the seal through the wall, and then I look back at Mikoto and see her gazing at me with some kind of hate in her eyes. And then, just as the seal begins to crack, a figure of blurry black appears from behind them and the figure wraps his arms around both their necks, breaking them in one motion, and they fall to the ground in a puff of smoke, totally different dead bodies lying there. And the shadow figure walks forward, and I walk back, until I notice the abnormal height and the porcline mask strapped carelessly to that face. The grey hair falls in tumbles of spiky messes over his shoulder and I know who the steel grey chakra is. It's Vicious, one of my brother's teammates. But I don't trust him and take a step back, away from the demon mask that stairs back at me. 'it's alright,' he tells me,' your brothers sent me.' I don't believe him. 'No one is allowed in here,' I tell him. 'That's ok,' he tells me, slowly lowering himself to the ground, 'that's fine. I'm just going to sit here until help arrives, is that alright? If I sit here?' I think on it and nod, deciding that wouldn't hurt anyone. I stare at the bodies of the ninja on the ground. Both are men, maybe not even older than Sasuke, both with so much pent up chakra that is slowly fading away. I stare at it, the chakra colors seeping away to black, and then going out completely. Like a light in a lantern being turned off, slowly exhausting flame. And then they look dead, corpses on our grass, and I find myself trembling as I glare down at them. And then I feel someone I didn't expect to feel, the fast paced chakra of bleeding red. And I glanced down at the red blood dripping from one boys mouth and drying on the sand. I felt myself shiver, curl up in a ball, and check to make sure every part of the ANBU Vicious was perfectly his own, that there was no hinge over any part of his body. I notice that the chakra is swirling out from his center and from random points within the bones, and that there are fluctuations all the time. Fluctuations I rarely ever notice. I decide that I will never miss the fluctuations again. And then Fugaku came like a gale wind on the ocean, disrupting the peace just by drawing near, and then ANBU stands gracefully from his spot and draws a knife from his pouch. 'What is the meaning of this?' Fugaku says, outraged, and I cannot see him from behind the rice paper front door, only hear his voice, as I always do. I focus intently on the chakra, and I find that if I try hard enough can see the way his lips move, I can read the words from the chakra coursing through his tongue. Vicious says, 'these two were disguised as your wife and her lover with the intent on killing your daughter.' Fugaku pauses, and I cannot see his eye movements through the chakra but I am willing to bet he is glaring at the two dead boys in form of me. 'Where is she?' Fugaku asks, voice low and cold and nothing like one he would normally use. 'Inside,' Vicious says, 'but I can't let you in there. Not after this little episode. I need proof that you're really who you look like you are.' I can feel the flare in Fugaku's chakra that's enough to make me shiver and stand, going to the edge of the wood and trying to peek out past the seal. 'How dare you,' Fugaku spits, but before he can say anything else I speak up. 'Vicious,' I call. They both go quiet. 'Can I come out now?' Vicious glances at me, 'No'. 'When can I come out?' As I thought, Fugaku spoke up then, 'Katana, this ANBU is in job to protect you, for some reason. Listen to him.' I say, 'Father, their light went away.' Fugaku makes an annoyed sound in the back of his throat, but instead talks to Vicious. 'Listen, boy, I've got an ID and I can let you feel my chakra to know it's me. Will that be enough?' 'Yes,' Vicious says to him. I hear him fish through his pocket, 'I don't know who informed you of this situation, but if my sons have anything to do with it I would like to know.' 'We are aware of your…difficult situation. Our loyalties are to our captain and the girl,' Vicious stated. 'So this isn't an official ANBU mission?' Fugaku asks. 'If it involves the safety of our captain we have the right to make it official, if we so wish it,' Vicious stated. In the course of their conversation I have moved back to the shadows, trying to figure out where my brothers were in the mass confusion of people moving within the clan walls. But I find none of them. And when I look up, Fugaku is moving towards me with the cold grace of a serpent, none to gentle pulling my up with his thumb hooked under my armpits, hoisting me up onto his hip and keeping me there with one arm. It was a strange feeling, to say the least. I hadn't ever been in Fugaku's arms quite like this, not really in anyone's but Itachi and Sasuke, occasionally Utaka and Shisui. But Fugaku was different because he was hard and cold, pure muscle and might, but he is willingly taking me now, and I curl into him with my arms around his neck and bury my head in his neck. I hear Vicious grunt, and then we move out into the sunlight. Somewhere, I know my brothers are moving around just like we are, and when Itachi pops up from nowhere I don't glance up from behind curled in my spot. I even my breathing, to appear sleeping, and Fugaku bought it. 'Is she alright?' Itachi asks. I feel his hand on my elbow. 'She'll be fine,' Fugaku says, 'just processing everything that's happening I bet.' Itachi hums. 'Where is your mother?' Fugaku asks. 'With Katsu,' Itachi answers bitterly. I feel Fugaku nod. 'Is she going to be coming back?' Itachi asks. 'The council will decide,' Fugaku says, 'but I doubt they will force divorce. The main family cannot know about the rift in the head family. It will tear everything apart.' They are silent and I realize that people are staring at us. Their chakra shots towards me as their eyes flicker between each one of my family members, and I realize that this is all part of the war. The gesture Fugaku made was cold and wasn't made out of fatherly love. The proclamation he is making now will go straight to my mother's ears. I am caught unwillingly in a war between my parents, and I have been forced on Fugaku's side.

The news of Fugaku's public support of his supposed bastard daughter spread like wildfire straight to the one person I knew it would, straight to Mikoto. Mariko lives on the same street as my grandmother, Mikoto's mother who I never meet, and she tells me over the garden hedge that you could hear Mikoto's fury from six houses down. 'You would think someone killed her puppy,' Mariko tells me, 'the way she was fuming around.' 'Yeah,' I tell her back, 'something like that.' For three days, no one comes home. Grandfather moves back in with me, but he no longer speaks. When he does, it's always a command, for me to get him something or to be quiet even though I never said anything. Fugaku hasn't been here since his public declarations of my support, and Itachi only stops by at night time to sleep for two or three hours, and then leaves again. I haven't seen Sasuke since he left me in Shisui's room. I haven't seen either of my cousins, but according to Mariko they have been visiting with all kinds of people in the clan, from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs. Grandfather doesn't make me go visit the princesses, but Hiroko and Yukari come to visit me. We have a sparring match in the garden, and I beat them badly. All the pent up energy and anger travel with my body movements, and for once I regret ever stepping foot on the sand. They look up at me from their positions on their backs, where I let them fall, and Hiroko pushes her lips. When I let my hand come out to help her up, as a peace offering, she pushes it away. Yukari takes it. She says, 'I think you're a freak. But I think you're a good freak. Tell me how to do that move you did.' 'I call it the backwards turtle,' I tell her, 'Because you flip people over your back.' 'Show me.' We spend all afternoon on the training field. Grandfather watches from his place at the table, while Hiroko glares at us in disgust while she mends her wounded pride. I find that the more we fight, the more I like Yukari. She has a willingness to learn that sets her apart from her more natural talented sister. She was a good distraction to keep my mind off everything that was happening in my life, and I took advantage of that fact and somewhere along the line of the few days that everyone in my life was gone, I developed a friendship with an unlikely ally.

The day before my fifth birthday, Mikoto comes home. She is with Fugaku when I see her, coming briskly down the street, head held high against the wind. To anyone who saw her she looked like the head wife, but to me she looked like a woman shamed, trying to appear taller than she was. Fugaku towers over her as they make their way to the house and are welcomed back by Grandfather. He doesn't so much as glance at Mikoto. She might as well be dead to him. And in a very public display, she drops to her knees before me and wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulling me tight against her, pinching my skin if I don't. I can feel Fugaku's cold, hard glare on our backs. I keep my head down as she pulls away and bright says, loud enough for everyone to hear her, 'Happy birthday, sweetheart.' I still look at the ground, but murmur a 'thank you mother.' she stands, rather triumphant, and before she can turn back to Fugaku I grab the end of her skirt. 'But you're wrong mother,' I tell her. She turns back with some kind of confused looks, mixed with anger, and that spurs me on. I tell her, 'Today isn't my birthday, tomorrow is. The eighteenth, remember?' she doesn't remember, but most people in the area heard my comment and they remember. The day of Fugaku's shame, and she had pushed it from her mind. I can understand that. I never got a happy birthday form either of them until today, and she didn't even remember when it was. I can feel the corners of Fugaku's mouth turn up in a secret smile. Grandfather puts his hand on my back as if he could protect me from my mother's wrath. I don't look at her but I can feel her angry chakra. She spins on a heel, and goes into the house. Fugaku, in another display of misplaced affection, takes me up into his arms, and not for the first time I wonder, if I was a boy, would my father love me?


End file.
